260 in 2012 DEVOS - Day 167 - Galatians 5: Freedom & Fruit

In this chapter, Paul continues to address wrong thinking, adding to the Gospel of grace! He begins by stating the obvious: If you have to be circumcised, then “Christ will be of no value to you at all.” In other words, if acceptance before God is based on something WE do then Jesus died in vain. Truth is, we are free from the law of works and our acceptance is based on what Jesus did! “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” When Paul writes, “You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?” – he is reminding them of the Gospel he preached and they believed in, but someone was turning them away from – and it wasn’t God! And truth mixed with the least bit of lie is still a lie! The next verse cracks me up and is a bit PG-13…..”As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!” Translate – Hey, if circumcision is so pleasing to God, then why not just whack it all off and really please God?!” Yikes! Moving on…. Paul’s thrust is that we are to act out of love not law. Pau then reminds them that as believers, they have God’s Holy Spirit living in them and they should follow His guiding and not what where their sinful nature leads them because they battle each other. He then goes on to list the fruit of the sinful nature and the fruit of the spirit and a call to not follow our sinful nature but God’s Spirit. SO WHAT?! *When do you feel most accepted by God? When you are consistently reading your Bible and praying? When you are at church each week? When you help another believer out? Yadda, yadda, yadda…. As good as all those things are, we must always remember that our acceptance before God is never based on our performance (whew)! It is based on Jesus’ performance in our place and God accepted Him fully! *Ever allowed other convince you of things not in scripture? Yeah, me too. The more you and I are in our Bible consistently, the more we will be able to spot error. Let’s live 2 Timothy 2:15! *Finally, verse 24 reads, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” I believe it, but in my daily life I don’t always experience it! Lord please help me seek You and Your leading as I deal with my sinful desires!